HALLOWEEN FUN!

Wow!  I must say that I am excited that it is now Halloween Night and I can sit and love that all of these past few crazy days are now over.  As it was very fun and exciting, it seems as though Halloween has gotten to be almost as bad as Christmas and is drawn out in multiple events!  With our Halloween festivities starting last Friday, it's been a very busy past 6 days full of sugar and fun!  We had a great time and the kids enjoyed every single second of it!

TRUNK OR TREAT

Friday, October 26th

 We started off our Halloween festivities with Trunk or Treat at our church on Friday night.  It was just the boys and I, as Lee was still at work.  The boys looked great in their costumes and were filled with excitement for the evening.  Tyler's costume is Bumblebee the Transformer and Brady is IronMan.

 On the way to our first Trick-or-Treat event.

 Trunk-or-Treat at church.

 Inside church they have games and crafts.  We met some of our close friends at the church and enjoyed the evening!  Tyler got some Vampire teeth as a prize after playing a game.

 The tradition is to dump out all the candy on the living room floor to check out all of the goods.  While they each got to choose one thing to eat, I snapped a couple of good pictures!

 NIGHT EYES

Saturday, October 27th

 We took the kids to Night Eyes at Blank Park Zoo on Saturday night to do another round of Trick-or-Treating.  This was our first time going to the Zoo for Halloween.  The boys had a great time seeing the animals as they were also getting candy!

 First person they see when we walk into the zoo is Spiderman!  (and Batman)  They were so excited!

 They also had a great time playing at the park in the zoo.

 The Camel Ride.  This was Brady's first time riding a camel, but Tyler has done it a couple times before.  The guy leading the camel said that 'by the time that Mom was out of eye sight, Brady started to cry.'  So, pretty much, Brady cried the whole ride.  Tyler on the other hand had a great time!

 Brady was a little bummed after the camel ride, so we cheered him up by playing peek-a-boo with this seal.  It was very cute!  The seal would go under water and pop back up to see Brady!

 Our Family at Night Eyes 2012

PUMPKIN CARVING

Sunday, October 28th

 Lee did some great, traditional, pumpkin carving to create our Jack-o-lanterns for our front porch.

My mom came in to town for Saturday night and Sunday.  I peeled her away from the boys on Sunday to go into Des Moines with me to do some shopping for Tyler's birthday and even got some Christmas presents.  It was a wonderful shopping day with Mom!

 TRICK-OR-TREAT NIGHT

Tuesday, October 30

 The morning of "Trick-or-Treat Night."  Before heading out in the morning, the boys were very excited for the day!  Thank you, Grandma Mary, for finding these awesome shirts at Von Maur!

 Before leaving the house for work/daycare Tuesday morning, I packed drinks, snacks, Halloween costumes, and buckets, so that I could pick the kids up from Daycare and head to The Square downtown to do our first trick-or-treating for the night.  Tyler had his Halloween Party at school on Tuesday as well, so he was pretty much in his costume the entire day.  I picked the boys up by 4:00, got them changed into their costumes at daycare, and the boys and I headed to the square to do some trick-or-treating. 

 After trick-or-treating on the square, we headed home for dinner, waited for Lee to get home from work,  and then headed out again to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood.  We got to take Cali with us this time!

 I had the three of them stop for a quick photo.

Throughout this night, there were tears, tears, and more tears!  They were so tired it seemed that every little thing caused tears and a dramatic situation.  I think that we were all glad when we made it through the neighborhood and back home to go to bed!

 These were our bowls of candy before we added in the candy from the actual trick-or-treat night!  Pretty sure Lee will be taking a good percentage of that candy to work.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Wednesday, October 31st

 Wickedly Handsome Boys!

Again, very excited for the day!

With all of the trick-or-treating done, we have to think of other ways to make the actual day special.

They started off the day with a ghost shaped breakfast and monster mouth apples.  They took Monster Mouth Apples for snack to Daycare.  They got Mummy Dogs for dinner and they both were wickedly handsome all day long!

And we can't forget about our little princess, Cali.  She also wore her cute little outfit for Halloween Trick-or-Treating.

 Have I said lately how much I love my job and love the people I work with?!  Well, I do.  And I love that every year, we come up with a theme for all of us to dress up for Halloween.  This year, since our theme at school for the year is 'A Sea of Success', we went with the Gilligan's Island Cast for Halloween.  I went as The Movie Star; we had the Millionaire and His Wife, Skipper, The Professor, Mary Ann, and Gilligan.  It was so much fun!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

FALL LEAVES

We had great weather this past week to enjoy the fall leaves!

Tyler had a great time running and jumping into the leaves and also throwing them into the air.  Brady, on the other hand, had fun for awhile, but then couldn't stand that the leaves would get stuck to his clothes.  :)  So, he was more content hanging out and playing on the back deck. 

And of course Brady had his pajamas on!

LOVE IT!

HAPPY FALL!

SOCCER

 Fall Soccer Season came to an end last weekend.

All of the kids showed great improvement and always ran around having a great time!

Way to go Team USA!

 Tyler started out the season scoring goals in the first game, ran really hard and became aggressive throughout the season, working on teamwork and passing the ball, and then in the final game came back to score another goal!  He has an absolute blast and runs the field with a big smile on his face the entire game!

 Brady and Camryn enjoy the sidelines.  They get each other giggling!

Great Fall Season!  Thank you, Coach Chad and Coach Lee for your wonderful work!  And thank you kids for making our Monday night practices and Saturday morning games so much fun!  You make us proud!

ADVENTURELAND 2012

I realized, just recently, that I never put together a post from our Adventureland trip from the summer.  I know that I'm going to want these pictures and memories included in our 2012 blog book, so thought I'd better get a post together since this is one of the highlights of our summer vacation.

The kids absolutely love everything about their day at the Adventureland Park.  This is one of the most highlighted adventures in our summer vacation each summer and this summer was even better than last.  My mom also loves to come with us to Adventureland, so we were lucky enough to have her join us again this summer.  We went to Adventureland on July 15, which was the day after we did the Warrior Dash, so my mom was already here to watch the boys while we were gone doing the dash.  It was a busy weekend, to say the least!

When at Adventureland, I love watching the excitement on the boys' faces on each ride, seeing the wonder in their eyes when wondering which ride is going to be next, and hearing the squeels and giggles of excitement when their tummies "drop" on a ride.  This is a great day that we all love!  With the amusement park rides, waterpark rides, fun, nice weather, and good company, it's an all around great day!

The first stop:  The Frog Hopper.  This was Brady's first year to enjoy the Frog Hopper!  This has been Tyler's favorite ride for the past 2 years, so I was very excited to see how Brady would react to it.  Well, Brady loved it and Tyler ended up being too scared to get on it!  This was a complete shock!  So, Brady and Grandma rode the Frog Hopper while Tyler watched.  We decided we would try again later...

Next stop...Motorcycles.

Don't they look bad!

I love the Log Ride!  I also love that we can all ride it together.  And yes, Brady and I got soaked, while Lee and Tyler hardly got a splash!

They also love driving these semi-trucks.  Here's Brady and his cool dude shades.

And Tyler in his semi-truck.

AND they love the airplane ride!

Pure excitement and...

....pure joy!

And the ladybug roller coaster ride.

Back at the Frog Hopper.  Tyler decided he wanted to give it a try since his little brother showed him up earlier.  And he, once again, loved it!  They have the best time on this ride.  The sound of their giggles and squeels is priceless!  I love standing and watching them on this ride--it makes me so happy to see them so happy!

And on to the waterpark.  They had built on to the waterpark since last summer, which was a good thing.  I love the splash park area and the boys do as well.

They think it's so much fun to push these buttons and see where the water's going to come out.

Lazy River.

Wave Pool.

After the waterpark, we did a couple more rides.  You can tell by the looks on their faces, that it's already been a very fun, tiring day!  But, they still wanted to keep on going.  It's hard to say 'no' at Adventureland!

And one last ride on the "favorite", the Frog Hopper.  For the day, Brady's #3 ride and Tyler's #2.

Grandma taking the boys on the Carousel Ride.

Grandma and Brady on the train ride.

Tyler and I on the train ride.

We decided to do an Old Time Photo at the end of the day.  We let the boys choose which "theme" they wanted and they chose the gangster theme, so that's what they got.  They turned out great!

Another very successful trip to Adventureland over the summer.

...Until next year!